


Case File 48-2

by Aicosu



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 2016 Reylux Tropesgiving Exchange, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Detective Noir, F/M, M/M, Multi, Murder, Murder Mystery, Mystery, serial killer au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 04:34:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8735065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aicosu/pseuds/Aicosu
Summary: Sheriff Hux is called in for a homicide.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hello-reylux (She0l)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/She0l/gifts).



> For Reylux Tropesgiving 2016
> 
> For Hello-Reylo. Thanks Andy! 
> 
> "Serial Killer AU where one is the killer, one is the detective, and one is the next victim."

The lights flashing across his windshield are molten. Liquid. Hues of penny-copper and then an ocean’s wave of indigo, back and forth, back and forth.

It smells like old cotton and leather. Upholstery and plastic. Unapologetic car smell. And sulfur. The undeniable hidden hint of nicotine that seemed to sneak in like a gas leak from the cracked window on his right. He paused. His left, actually.

It had maybe been 43.5 hours since he’d slept. No personal record, but he could feel each click of the clock in the slight itch of his eyelashes. In the slow stagnate pace of his breath. He’d sleep soon. After.

The breaker snapped through the air like a cocking gun. Or the break of a neck. A bone snapping under a fleshy patch of muscle.

“Dispatch 2 requesting immediate return for a 33-226. Two sus in custody with Officer--”

His finger flicked the metal prong on his radio and the breaker died.

The pulling of his leather driving gloves was a ritual. Finger by finger. Breath by breath. He slid them into the sun visor, replacing the metal badge that clipped there. The small shield's letter’s bit into nails as he pinned it to his shirt. Scratched the callous on his fingertips.

The key into the ignition grated against the metal there, twisted in his now bare hands like routine. The car revved on and he watched the molten red and ocean blue fade away until he was idling in blackness. Staring at a now empty car park, from his vantage beneath the highway, he waited, watching yellow and black tape flicker through the wind.

He’d give it another 20 minutes.  


* * *

 

Lt. Mitaka opened the door for him halfway through a sentence.

“-ust understaffed for it, Sheriff. Phasma brought them in around 6 this morning and I’ve been calling the district's office but they just won't get back to us until they open at 8am since it's a weekday.”

Hux pulled a coffee from the Lt’s free hand, stopping at the processors desk to pick up yesterday's files from check out. The clerk wasn't in yet, and there was still a scratched in “fuck the police” next to the chained pen. It would need to be sanded and painted.

“I don't think this office has ever handled a homicide since 91’, Sheriff, and when I called Thannisson about it he said we should convoy them to the state. I checked the books about a convoy but we need black-out vehicles and a section 6-2 clearance for that.”

They were pacing down the hall now, an empty bullpen in front of them,, with only enough desks to cover half the floor. Where they sat empty. Officer-less, decor-less, authority-less. The ceiling fixture was still swinging from being turned on. Likely when the Lt. had opened. It made the light flicker oddly about them.

“Again, I'm sorry to call you Sheriff but I-I couldn't interview them without pre-approval. In the academy I wasn't put through confrontation assessment. They decided to put me through archiving when I opted out of detective work. But I, I figured that you would have done loads of homicides in the city and this one--”

“Lieutenant.” Hux finally addressed. The metal tab of rank on his collar pressed into his skin as he spoke. Stinging the tender flesh there. Making his word’s sound hoarse. “Why are both perps talking to each other?”

Lieutenant Mitaka joined him at the blinds, where his fingers had preened apart a view into the brick corridors of the only two interrogation rooms they had.

Two perps sat, arrested to their bench. One, male. Dark hair, dark eyes. Around 6’0”. Maybe more. Dark hoodie and dark jeans. Torn. Dark.

And a second. Female. Brown hair, brown eyes. Around 5’7”. On the nose, he’d bet on it. Plain face. Small hands. Dirty hands. Dirty shoes too, he’d bet. He’d bet it all.

She was wearing a shock blanket about her shoulders and held a cup op styrofoam coffee from the bullpen. They were whispering, lips almost pressing on each other’s faces.

Perp 2. The female. She turned, looked out toward them. Toward him. The male followed her gaze.

“Why are both perpetrator’s allowed to speak to each other, after being detained?”

He met their gazes.

“I.. I wasn’t sure about procedure. She’d just come from the crime scene and it’d been a violent--”

“They are suspects in a murder and you’re allowing them to match the stories they’ll spin us.” Hux’s fingers snapped the blinds back into order, twisted to his lieutenant. “Separate them. Him in the first room and her in the second.”

“Yes sir, right away.” Mitaka took a step back, only to pause. “I left the case files from the crime scene on your desk.”

“I don’t need those, just get me their records.”

“Yes sir.”

 

* * *

 

There were no two way mirrors. No cameras. No recorders. Just a drilled in desk and two chairs.

And one perp. 6’3” now that he was closer. But still dark. Still Torn. Hands picking at his fingers on the table where they were cuffed. Looking down. Can’t have that.

“Ben Solo.” He began before he sat, placing the open file in his hands into the empty seat. “A handful of infractions, four misdemeanors-”

“You have my record?!” A yell greeted him.

“-and a charged felony returned from court as an association charge.”

The chair screeched over his voice as he snapped up, dark eyes tearing into Hux’s peripherals. “That’s not-- That’s not supposed to be on record--”

“No? I found it. I found your juvenile history, your probation, your hearing-- and your settlement. Hm. Expensive. Military father? Political mother? It’s always one of the two.”

The word’s stung. Instantly. Perfectly predicted. Down to every tooth shown in his snarl, every twitched muscle collided with the moles on his face. Asymmetrical. Misplaced. A wrong-place, wrong-time type boy. Boy. With grit and grudges and maybe some blood too.

Hux smiled. It pulled the tight gel in his hair and the unslept creases in his eyes. “And now we’ve added homicide to the menu, Ben.”

The hands yanked at the cuffs loud enough to clang, to creak the table against it’s tightened screws. Hux’s brows hitched as the steel moved. A reflection of the steel moving in the muscles across from him. In the rage of that face. Strong. Torn and Dark and Strong.

“I don’t have to talk to you. I told your L-T that we get an attorney and a fuckin phone call--”

L-T. Attorney. Hux flipped a page in the file thoughtfully. “Ah. A father in the force then.”

“Fuck you!” He yelled, the table screamed in protest again as the boy tried to stand.

“Sit down.” Hux demanded, not looking up at the face he could already picture so clearly. “You’re not getting a lawyer. You’re not getting a phone call.”

“I have rights!”

Hux laughed. It made his throat burn. But his back arched pleasurably and he leaned into the action, turning his genuine mirth at the boy, finding him already sitting again. Stunned into submission by Hux’s reaction. “Rights! What rights? Do you know where you are? This is not--” He paused, guessing and confirming the boy’s original driver’s license, “--Aldera. There is no process here.”

The chuckle left, faded away like the defiance in the eyes across him. “You drove your 28yr old runaway life into a town under a population of 100. I have 3 active officers on staff who rotate reading water meters for the bar down the road. Our courtroom is down the hall, to the right. The nearest attorney, for you, Mr. Solo, is four hours away in Talliten, when you decided to murder the motel staff, perhaps you should have done it there, were they also dole out phone calls.”

“We didn’t murder anyone!” Ben yelled, his face hitching as soon as he realized he shouldn’t have spoken, replaced only with the desperate look of someone who didn’t care anymore.

“We? Perhaps not, but with a record full of B&E, theft, grand theft, kidnapping, manslaughter--”

“That’s--no! No! I wasn’t apart of that! You don’t understand you-- you can’t use that on me! You haven’t even asked me what happened. My own testimonial, record my fucking testimonial--”

“I don’t need it to convict you. I can have the county clerk as witness to our Judge in the morning. You could be in state by Monday. Orange clothes and all.”

“No! You can’t fucking do that! We didn’t kill that man, it was somebody else! We saw some guy in the parking lot cut that man's face apart! Strangle him! Rey she, she fought with him! We were trying to save that man from the real fucking killer!”

“Rey?” Hux latched onto, sliding one file across another one. “The underage 17 yr old girl you kidnapped from social services?”

Ben’s hands pulled. The table screamed. The metal snapped like the cocking of a gun or the snapping of a neck. Of bone. The perp lurched back from the give of the cheap-country provided metal, his massive weight and straining steel body kicking from the chair to stand.

But Hux had been counting the clicks. Waiting for the links to give. His bare hands pressed callouses into the chair beneath him, lifted it as he stood, swinging it’s familiar weight into the dipped ready-run pose Ben took.

It was slow and precise and perfect and predictable. The chair leg smashed into Ben’s chest. The perp went down as easy as if they’d done it before. It made Hux smile as he tossed the chair to the ground.

“Lieutenant! Captain!” He sharpened. Mitaka and Phasma were in before the boy could regain his lost, blown out, unbelieving breath.

Before dark eyes turned up to tear into Hux’s.

“Yo-you-- you are fuck-fuckin--you! You’re all fucking corrupt!”

“Detain him again. Careful with the cuffs, please.”

His staff followed his order, yanked the boy up even as his eyes never left Hux’s head as the Sheriff collected the files and left one interrogation room for another.

Mitaka stopped him, whispering through Ben Solo’s screams and yells and accusations. A worried face contrasting with the shadow of Phasma wrestling with their perpetrator.

“Sir? Did he confess to the crime? I was concerned with his genuine--”

“All criminals are genuine, lieutenant.” He lifted the boy’s record to the younger officer. Genuine himself. “He’s a convicted felon of manslaughter, dragging a stolen girl, ten years his younger.”

Mitaka took the file slowly, head twisting to pin his worried look to the dark-haired, dark-eyed, torn-jean statistic.

“Most likely, he was going to kill her too.”

 

* * *

 

Perp 2 met his eyes when he opened the door.

5’7". Brown hair. Brown eyes.

But he didn’t see the plain face he saw before.

She said nothing. Even as the door closed on Ben’s yells of her name.

Rey.

Hux took his seat quietly this time. He already had her attention. Still, he flipped open the file for himself. Predictable things. Ward of state. Her last name was DN84220-1. She had infractions of her own. Pilfering. Loitering. A speeding ticket. No felonies. No charges. No arrests. But the same hometown as her associate.

The same stitched determination in their jaw. Molten. The wash of ocean indigo after the wave of fire red. A siren.

He raised his head to her. Keeping her silence.

She didn’t pull on her wrists. She kept her legs scrunched up onto her chair. Comfort. Not defense.

When she spoke, it was level. Familiar. Like the imprints of his badge into his fingers.

“How’s your neck?”

Hux smiled. Remembering the small digits curled as they were on the table as they had been on his skin at 5:22am this morning.

“You’re not an actor like your boyfriend.” He accused. “Or maybe he didn’t figure it out like you did.”

“How many people with hair as red as that live in this crap town?”

He chuckled. Quite honestly too, it hurt his throat and made him laugh even more.

Smart. 4’7” with Brown hair and Brown eyes and Smart. Strong and Dark and Small and Smart. Quite a pair.

“We’ll tell everybody what we saw. What I saw. I’ll tell your nice little Lieutenant and you’ll be caught.”

Hux was almost disappointed and he let it show as he flicked her file toward her. Sliding manila down steel until it kissed her little knuckles. “You're playing the wrong pieces on this board. No one is going to believe you two. You know that don’t you?” He leveled his head with hers, again, honestly. The badge on his chest clipped once more on his sun visor. “No one’s believed you yet. Have they? Social Services would be happy to have you back I’m sure, and I can bet my entire station that Mr. Solo’s parents would love him back too.”

Rey swallowed. A hitch in her like the hitch in Ben's. Identical save for the height and build. Their physical nature nothing but a cover into their same feelings. Different records for the same person. It was almost fascinating. Admirable. Familiar.

“You weren’t scared, were you?” He asked, quietly, against the strain of her fingers on his neck.

“No.” She answered, already understanding his meaning. “Why should I be?”

“Why indeed?” He contemplated. “Most people are, Rey. Most people are exactly what Ben’s so good at pretending to be. Scared and genuine. Most people don’t jump on a murderer’s back and try to murder them themselves.”

Rey said nothing, but she didn’t look away.

“There are some things not on these records. Aren’t there?” He asked, a finger motioning to the paper before her.

“Same as you.”

“Yes.” Hux mused. Standing. “Same as me.”

 

* * *

 

The lights flashing across his windshield are molten. Liquid. Hues of penny-copper and then an ocean’s wave of indigo, back and forth, back and forth.

It smells like old cotton and leather. Upholstery and plastic. Unapologetic car smell. And sulfur.

The nicotine burns it all out though. Like gas. It fills his lungs and nostrils and his sleep deprived eyelashes until he sees an illusion of fog on the horizon. He hadn’t slept just yet. But maybe he would soon.

There’s a crack in the window to let the smoke out, to his right. It feed into the cracked window in the backseat too. And perp 2 coughs.

He catches her eyes in the rear view. Only for a second. It’s hard to tell time over the siren’s blaring but he counts it anyway.

Perp 1. Male. Dark, Torn, Strong. He stares out the window to the left.

The road to state is long. Maybe 6 hrs if he speeds. He can with the siren on.

They haven’t spoken since the Lieutenant helped him fill out their papers for transfer. Not since their little judge minted a seal on their convictions. The papers sit in a pile in the passenger’s seat.

The breaker snaps through the air like a cocking gun. Or the break of a neck. A bone snapping under a fleshy patch of muscle.

“Dispatch 1 reporting a sighted loitering case on Central--”

His finger flicks the metal prong on his radio and the breaker dies. He reaches to kill the siren too. It fades out quickly, fills the air with a silence he can grip in the leather covered fingers coiled around his steering wheel.

The little gold shield that is his badge sits above his head, clipped on the sun visor.

The patrol car gasses forward until it doesn’t and when the tires hit the gravel and dirt fills the air, both perp’s sit up, proper.

Ben looks behind them. Rey looks ahead. He files that away onto their records.

They drive parallel to the road until they come to a stop. Right before the sign. Exiting. Entering. Population 76. There’s a car on the other side of the sign too.

Hux clicks open the door and lets his cigarette fall to the fate of his boot.

When he opens the door they don’t run or bolt. He doesn’t expect them too. Would have bet on it. They match up, predictably, to that. Familiar. Different records for the same person.

He leads them around the empty road, stops at the yellow painted line against the asphalt. Pulls a routine key from his palm and presses it into the callouses of Ben’s fingers.

“Talliten’s four hour’s away, Mr. Solo.” He smiles. He ignores the Dark eyes, the soft mouth slack from its defense. But he allows himself to remember the sudden furrow of heavy brows going thankful. Understanding.

Hux turns to Rey and she meets him with ferocity. With kinship. “I would keep going from there if I were you though.”

They nod. They look at each other. They’re hands meet before him where he takes of their cuffs, let’s their fingers slide away from his like steel off manila.

He watches them walk to the car, turn the key and get in.

He’d give it another 20 minutes.

But Rey stops. Perp 2. She looks towards the city sign. Population 76. Perp 1 follows her gaze. Smart and Dark and Small and Strong.

They look toward him and when her voice meets him it’s level. Like the imprints of his badge into his fingers.

“Are you coming?”


End file.
